Abstract
AbstractWe use a sales database of farmers market vendors in the Washington, D.C., area to estimate how first half 2020 sales were impacted by the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. We use 2019 data as a counterfactual for sales that would have occurred in 2020 in the absence of COVID-19. For neighborhood weekend markets that were able to remain open during the pandemic, the change in 2020 average sales between the winter and spring is between 75% and 79% lower than in 2019. Other farmers markets, particularly weekday markets in business districts, experienced delayed openings or were closed for the entire year.
Highlights
IntroductionOthers projected devastating financial hardship to local producers if direct sales via farmers markets, restaurants, and institutions collapsed and the economy went into a major recession (resourcED, 2020; Thilmany et al, 2020b)
The U.S Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Census of Agriculture data indicates that direct-toconsumer (DTC) food sales by the U.S farms doubled between 1992 and 2012, and most recently equaled $3 billion in 2017 (O’Hara and Benson, 2019).1 DTC outlets include on-farm stores, farmers markets, roadside stands, community-supported agriculture (CSA) programs, and online marketplaces
A more traditional DD model is infeasible for our purposes since: (a) there aren’t many, if any, U.S farmers markets that were unaffected by COVID-19, (b) comparable data from markets in other U.S cities is not readily available, and (c) seasonal fluctuations in farmers markets sales elsewhere in the U.S are not necessarily the same as in Washington, D.C., due to differences in growing seasons
Summary
Others projected devastating financial hardship to local producers if direct sales via farmers markets, restaurants, and institutions collapsed and the economy went into a major recession (resourcED, 2020; Thilmany et al, 2020b). These contradictory assessments presented a challenge to policy makers helping the agricultural sector adapt to COVID-19, since officials were creating large emergency support programs within a brief time frame (Johansson et al, 2020). Other farmers markets had to adopt exacting social distancing guidelines in order to remain open during the pandemic While these protocols evolved throughout 2020 and the details varied by jurisdiction, they included requiring customers to
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